Getting to grips with arty b******s. Why photography students should consider writing an artist's statement.

By Jon Nicholls, Thomas Tallis School.

Like other aspects of contemporary art practice, artists' statements can be mystifying and alienating, mired in theoretical abstractions. The example above was generated by a website which aims to draw attention to the perils of artspeak. It could have been designed by George Orwell. So, why would I be recommend that photography students enter this dangerous territory?

Writing an artist's statement might seem like a curious activity for a photography student but I'd like to argue that the process can have all sorts of collateral learning opportunities beyond simply generating the statement itself. For me these include:

• exploring (and questioning) the jargon and lexicon that accompanies contemporary art
• reflecting on personal interests and ways of seeing/photographing
• playing with the identity of an artist/photographer (rather than just an art/photography student)
• thinking about making photographs as a kind of art practice
• experimenting with the relationship between language and images
• crafting and refining an authentic, personal, meaningful (and manageable) piece of writing
• generating ideas for new projects

This is an activity I've explored with Year 12 students at about the time that they are beginning to think about more personal investigations. I'm really interested in the idea that students are 'becoming artists' and, since writing statements that describe a practice (whatever that might be) are central to the business of being an artist today, I've speculated that trying this process out with students might be an interesting way for them to put on the mantle of a contemporary artist and try it out for size.

Here's how I explained the process to my students:

Remember, this is meant to be a fairly light-hearted introduction to writing a statement. You may feel like you don't yet have enough work or know how you feel about your own practice to do this confidently. However, having to think about the following should help you generate some ideas about what you do next. Your statement should:
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• let people know how you 'see' the world e.g. you are interested in beauty, in the ordinary and mundane, in the way people interact with their environment, in the hidden or mysterious etc.
• how you feel about photography (and related forms of communication e.g. film, installation etc.) e.g. as a way to document reality, to transform reality, to hold a mirror to the truth, to disguise the truth etc.
• what kinds of subjects interest you e.g. the city, people, the natural world, the built environment etc.
• how you represent these subjects e.g. using abstraction, close-up, using collage, in black and white etc.
• what techniques/processes you might use in the creation of light and lens-based art works e.g. film, digital montage, mixed media etc.
• how you feel about the purpose of your work e.g. to challenge, entertain, mystify, delight etc.

Have fun. Be playful. Be bold. Write things that might be true. Try writing about yourself in the third person "she/he" rather than the first, "I".

However, this can be a daunting task for students who are just starting to think about what interests them and what kind of photographer/artist they might be. Therefore, it's important to be playful with the statement generating process and have some fun. Fortunately, there are some interesting resources out there that can help to get the ball rolling.

Stage 1: The Statement Generator

Using a statement generator is a great way to put some words on the blank page and begin to explore the curious language used in the world of contemporary art.** Some students will be adept with language. Others may feel very unconfident. In my experience, a significant proportion of the class will have chosen photography A level partly because they don't consider themselves to be 'academic'. The fear of the blank page can be overwhelming.

The 500 letters website is the most sophisticated statement generator that I've found (if you know one that's better please let me know in the comments below). Once you've clicked the 'this application' link, you're presented with the following questionnaire. This gathers enough information about you, your details and interests as an artist, to create a more nuanced statement than other generator like arty b******s, for example.

This is what I got back when I filled in the questionnaire:

Some of this is nonsense, some of it a bit silly. But, there are certain phrases that ring true. There are some interesting words to look up - "aleatoric", "transubstantiation", "assemblages", "analogies". The more items you select from the list available in the questionnaire, the longer and more detailed your statement. The point of using a statement generator is analogous to the act of photography itself. Photographers select from a world that is already full of stuff. Unlike the other arts, they rarely, if ever, begin with a blank page. The idea is not to keep the statement generated by the website. It's just an amusing way to get started. This brings us to Stage 2.

Stage 2: Refining the statement

Now that the blank page has words on it, students are able to edit freely rejecting, augmenting and refining until they have something that sounds a bit like them. There is plenty of other helpful advice out there if anyone gets a bit stuck or if a student prefers top go it alone. This blog post is a really helpful guide to constructing an artist's statement from scratch. If you don't want your statement to "suck", check out this advice. 

I have sometimes asked students to interview each other about their work. You could provide a list of questions or ask the students to create their own. You could read or watch some great interviews online. The purpose of this activity is a bit like the hot-seating I used to do when I taught English. When interviewed, each student has to put on the mantle of the expert and act as if they are an artist/photographer with an existing practice. I provide some general guidelines. No false modesty. All questions must be answered as fully as possible. Interviewers should probe with follow up questions. That sort of thing. It's a good idea for partners to record these interviews (using their phones, for example) so that both parties can concentrate on the discussion.

The opening sentence is important. Spend a bit of time on this. Here's an example that I've adapted from an existing artist's statement:

Photography is my key to the secret garden, my way down the rabbit hole, my looking glass.

Here's another:

I am drawn to sadness, discomfort and unpleasant things such as a dog run over by a car or an old lady wearing too much makeup … I want to see the whole story.

There's a famous story about the novelist James Joyce bumping into another writer who enquired about his day's work. Joyce had spent the entire day writing two sentences. The admirer wondered whether he had been struggling with a particular word. Joyce replied that he had written all the words early that morning but had spent the rest of the day putting them in the "perfect order". 

Stage 3: Sharing the statement

Getting a range of feedback about your statement is really important. Other readers can quiz you about the details, check that it makes sense and ask you for further clarification, if necessary. It's also important that the authors take responsibility for their words and see the statement as personal and meaningful (and not just because this is what they are required to do for Assessment Objective 4). A statement may take several drafts to get right. It's something the student can return to time and again, adapting as they go, to better reflect the nature of their evolving practice. It might be worth considering using an online word processor (like Google Docs) which allows for collaborative, iterative, remote editing. Documents can be shared with multiple editors and each version is saved behind the scenes. It's also almost impossible to "lose",  "leave at home" or be accidentally consumed by the family pet. 

Stage 4: Project Proposal (optional)

If the process has been successful and most students feel as though they have created an authentic statement about their practice as photographers/artists it might be a good idea to use these statements as catalysts for a new project. I have done this, asking my class to write or explain a proposed project that articulates the ideas in their statements. This could be as simple as a sentence or two or it might take the form of a conversation. Either way, it provides an opportunity for students to turn words into action, testing out their modus operandi. Ultimately, these statements might also form the basis of the students' personal study essays.

​If the process has been unsuccessful, it's important to reflect on the collateral learning. Writing reasonably substantial pieces of continuous prose has become even more important in the new A level specifications. Consider this a trial run. Studying a particular discipline can be a liminal experience in which students enter a particular threshold but may remain in a kind of limbo state for some time, struggling with troublesome knowledge. Acknowledging and explaining an artistic practice must surely be one of the most important experiences available to an A level arts student. Rome wasn't built in a day.

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** For a detailed riposte to the accusations presented in Triple Canopy's article “International Art English" by Alix Rule and David Levine, check out this post on the e-flux website.